Monday photo feature

The Columbia River Gorge on the Oregon-Washington state line will play host to the Gorge Downwind Championships next month.  Meanwhile, the "Vortex Series" has provided some warmup races out there in May and June.  The third of these three races took place weekend before last.

The conditions were uncharacteristically flat, but that didn't stop the athletes from creating plenty of excitement.  Aaron Small of Gig Harbor, Washington, edged out Austin Kieffer of Los Angeles, California, for the overall win.  Greg Barton of Seattle, Washington, racing with stitches in his hand after slamming it in a car door, took third place just a few seconds back.

Pictured above is the race for fourth place.  Andrew McEwan of White Salmon, Washington, had to fend off a charge from 19-year-old phenomenon Ana Swetish of Bellingham, Washington.

My arrival in the Columbia Gorge is drawing ever closer.  I plan to drive out of Memphis this Thursday and be in the Gorge by the 6th of July.

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The weekend didn't kill me, so it should make me stronger

I did some gym work before heading down to the river Friday morning.  As I paddled a 15-minute warmup into a stiff headwind, I could tell that my muscles were tired from the gym.

They'd be getting more tired during my in-the-boat workout.  I did two sets of three (3 minutes on/3 min. off) at 76 strokes per minute.  I did all of the first set, and the first two pieces of the second set, with light resistance on the boat, and my muscles were feeling pretty rubbery by the end of that.  For the last piece, Maks told me to remove the resistance: "See how it feels when you anchor well without the resistance on the boat--the boat will absolutely fly :)."  I guess the boat did fly--it moved about a half-mile per hour faster than it had with the resistance on--but my arms were too tired for me to enjoy it as much as Maks's colon-and-parenthesis smiley face suggests I should have.  Oh well.

Yesterday morning I did a calm 40-minute paddle.  That was just a warmup for the Saturday afternoon lactic session, and it was a bear.  Maks called it "a lactic hell."  It was four sets of two (40 seconds all-out/20 seconds rest/40 seconds all-out).  Maks said to take long breaks between the sets, so I made that 5 minutes 20 seconds; he didn't specify how long to take between the two reps that made up each set, so I made that 1 minute 20 seconds.  That way I'd be starting each rep at the top of a minute.  If I thought I was giving myself too much rest, I was relieved of that concern once the second set was underway.  Somehow I found it in me to put everything I had into every 40-second sprint, and every sprint hurt bad.  I don't think I've ever felt more grateful to reach the end of a workout.

This morning it was time to calm everything back down with an easy endurance workout.  I did three sets of (6 min. at 56 spm/4 min. at 60 spm/3 min. at 64 spm/2 min. at 68 spm), with a minute break between pieces and 2 minutes between sets.  I made a loop out on the Mississippi, where conditions were choppy because of a healthy south wind, and that added some balance drill to the session.

And so, my last full training week at home has come to a close.  I'm glad to have a day off tomorrow, as I've got a long list of chores to knock out before I depart for the Pacific Northwest on Thursday.

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More intensity

These days my training plan has shifted its focus more in favor of speed and lactic fitness.  That means somewhat shorter, more intense workouts and not so much grinding resistance training.

Maks started me off pretty easy on Tuesday: I did four sets of (3 minutes at 60 strokes per minute/2 min. at 66 spm/1 min. at 72 spm), with a minute break between the pieces and 2 minutes between sets.  It was a chance to concentrate on good stroke mechanics.

Yesterday I had a "speed endurance" workout.  It was three sets of eight times (10 seconds on/50 sec. off). Maks told me to paddle at about 85-90% of my top stroke rate (for me, around 110 spm) and take long breaks between the sets.  He said "the exhaustion will start to creep on you" as I got deep into each set, but I'm not sure it really did.  I think I was doing the sprints the way I was supposed to, but "exhaustion" isn't the word I would use to describe what I was feeling at any point.  By the end of it I was certainly ready for the workout to be over, but then I just shrugged and said "Okay... I guess that's it!"  Oh well.  There's nothing I can do but move on to the next day.

And that would be today, when I went out for a "high aerobic" workout: ten times (4 min. on, 1 min. off) at a strong 66-70 spm.  Per Maks's instructions, I stayed focused in the late stages of the session, when it's easy not to stay strong.  I felt good throughout and came home happy.

The coming weekend is my last in Memphis before I head for the Pacific Northwest.  Once again the training schedule looks like a challenge.

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Monday photo feature

If the Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race had happened this year, it would have been this past Saturday.

Back in 2005, the race field included Greg Barton, who'd won gold medals at the 1988 Olympic Games, and Jeff Smoke, who'd just been a member of the 2004 U.S. Olympic Team.  Jeff was accompanied to Memphis by his mother, Marcia Smoke, a member of the 1964, 1968, and 1972 U.S. Olympic Teams and winner of a bronze medal at the 1964 Games.

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Paddling easy and hard and everything in between

I started Friday morning with some gym work, and then went to the river and did three sets of four (1 minute on/1 min. off) at 80 strokes per minute.  I did the second set with resistance on the boat, the first and third sets without.  Maks described it as more of a "feeling" workout than anything else--"feel the glide of the boat and embrace the grip/anchoring," he said.  After feeling sort of sluggish in the boat the previous several days, I felt better on Friday.  Maybe being back home consuming my normal diet and sleeping in my own bed is helping.

Yesterday was a normal "two-a-day" Saturday.  The morning session was easy: two sets of (2 times 2 min. on/1 min. off at 50 spm and 2 times 3 min. on/1 min. off at 64 spm).  The heavy duty stuff came in the afternoon with a long, hard lactic session: four times (1 min. on/1 min. off), two sets of four (45 sec. on/45 sec. off), and four times (30 sec. on/30 sec. off), all at an "A3+" stroke rate or all-out.  Maks told me to take long breaks between the sets so I could do each set at close to all-out intensity.  Said he, "This is supposed to burn and hurt!"  I can handle some burn, and I can handle some hurt... but BOTH???  Lord help me.

Finding the right stroke rate was a challenge in this workout.  While doing the 1-minute pieces, I started off around 110 spm but in the last 15 seconds I was struggling to keep it above 100 spm.  By the 45-second pieces I was paddling around 106-108 spm and maintaining that throughout each effort.  For the 30-second pieces I paddled at about the highest rate of which I'm physically capable--something over 120 spm--and was able to maintain it, but when I was able to glance at my G.P.S. device's speed readout I saw that I wasn't moving the boat as fast as I had in the longer pieces.

I had some company yesterday afternoon: longtime racing friend Chris Hipgrave was passing through town on his way out West from his home in western North Carolina.  He paddled with me on my warmup and then did a loop out on the Mississippi while I stayed in the harbor and did my lactic workout.  Afterward he continued on toward the Colorado Rockies, where he hopes to do some whitewater paddling before moving on up to the Pacific Northwest, where I'll see him in the Columbia River Gorge next month.

This morning I enjoyed a calm 75-minute paddle in the A1 (below 75 spm) stroke rate zone.  Besides savoring the lovely morning, I worked on all the technical stuff that's occupied me this spring: stroke mechanics as well as sitting up straight in the boat and not slumping my head forward and stuff like that.

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Honest work in the sunshine

I paddled on Tuesday morning in bright sunshine.  The day was expected to get over 90 degrees Fahrenheit, but a north breeze made things quite pleasant.  I did two sets of four (2 minutes at 60 strokes per minute/2 min. at 80 spm/2 min. at 60 spm/2 min. rest).  The idea was to get up near anaerobic threshold during the 80-spm pieces, then train my body to reap some recovery while paddling back at 60 spm.

The weather was similar yesterday as I went through an endurance session: eight sets of (6 min. on/2 min. off) at 68 spm with some extra weight in the boat.  The pieces were hard enough that I was ready for each 2-minute rest period.

Today I observed yet another lovely morning with a sprint session.  I did four 25-second sprints at 4-minute intervals and six 15-second sprints at 3-minute intervals.  I started the longer sprints from rest while using flying starts for the shorter ones.

Three days of solid, but not too painful, workouts... the harder stuff appears to be looming this weekend.

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Monday photo feature

Zach Lokken of Durango, Colorado, competes at the whitewater slalom world cup event at Prague this past weekend.  By finishing eighth in the men's C1 class, Lokken edged out three-time Olympian Casey Eichfeld for a berth in the Olympic Games at Tokyo next month.  Photo by Jean Folger.

Michal Smolen of Bryson City, North Carolina, clinched the U.S. Olympic men's kayak berth with a fifth-place finish at Prague.  And so, the U.S. Olympic Canoe and Kayak Team is now set.  As I mentioned in this post back on the 19th of April, Evy Leibfarth of Bryson City will compete in the women's slalom C1 and K1 classes, while female C1 paddler Nevin Harrison of Gig Harbor, Washington, will race in the flatwater sprint regatta.

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From the coast back inland

On Friday morning I returned to the protected area at the northeast end of Dauphin Island.  I had a "maximum power" session to do: four sets of four 15-second sprints at 2-minute intervals, with "big resistance" on the boat.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: workouts like this might look scary on paper--Maks described it as "big resistance, high stroke rate emptying all your power reserves by the end of the session"--but it didn't feel anywhere near as brutal to me as, say, the power-building workout I'd done on Wednesday.  My power reserves were emptied by the end of the session, but at that point the session was... over.  I felt better after doing it than I'd felt before.

Friday morning's workout was actually scheduled for Saturday afternoon, but I had to do some shuffling because Saturday was a travel day for me (not Maks's fault at all--I hadn't really told him I'd be vacationing at the beach this week).  So I did the workout Friday morning and reserved Friday afternoon for one more possible downwind session.

The wind had shifted to the west-southwest and I wasn't sure what to expect out on the Gulf, but when I paddled out from the beach Friday afternoon I found more good swells coming at me.  The Gulf just keeps on giving.  I paddled into the wind until my G.P.S. device told me I'd gone 1600 meters (1 mile), and then I rode the swells almost back to the beach.  Then I did two more laps of that.  I felt really good in the boat--the most confident I'd felt all week in downwind conditions.

Mind you, I was far from perfect.  Lots of runs got away from me.  One useful thing about this trip is that it's helped me make up my mind what boat to take out to the Columbia Gorge with me next month.  On this trip I had the V10L surfski that I use for the mostly-flatwater races I do in this part of the country, including the one in Kentucky last weekend.  In terms of stability it's an elite-level ski, and while I didn't feel in over my head using it for downwind, there were many moments when I was within one good stroke of catching a good run, but was too off-balance to take that stroke.  I have a more stable V10 Sport model at home, and I will be taking that out West.

But aside from that, I had a great afternoon of paddling.  I think by Friday my body had adapted to the frequent hard sprints that downwind requires: earlier in the week I was having to stop and catch my breath a lot more.  The hard workout in the morning and the fun downwind session in the afternoon made Friday my best paddling day since before I left home on the 4th of this month.

We had an early checkout deadline at our condo, and I wanted to follow my mother back home to Memphis, so that was my only plan for yesterday.  The trip went smoothly enough and we're now safely back in good old Memphis, Tennessee.

It was good to be back on my home water this morning.  I went out and did a simple endurance workout: four sets of (6 min./4 min./3 min./2 min.) at 60-64 spm, with a minute rest between pieces and 2 minutes between sets.  I made a big loop out on the Mississippi during the course of the session.  The temperature was on its way above 90 degrees Fahrenheit, so I cooled off by doing some remount practice during those 2-minute breaks between sets.  I took a hose bath back at the dock.  Yep, it's good to be home.

Looking back on the past week, I'm pleased with how it went.  It took me several days to find my groove, but in the end I got some good downwind practice while still executing the meat of Maks's plan.  I plan to leave for the Pacific Northwest on July 1--18 days from now--and hopefully Maks has good ideas for helping me get as fast as I can be on flatwater during that period.  Once I'm out in the Columbia Gorge I'll have eight or nine days to get myself "downwind fit" for the big race out there.  Exciting days indeed, these are.

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Balancing my training plan with some Dixie downwind

It's been nice spending time with my family at Dauphin Island on the Alabama Gulf Coast this week.  But it's not without a few challenges.  The biggest is my energy level: I've felt really tired since I got here.  I'd had a tough weekend with the hard race and the long drive down here, but even a very inactive day on Monday didn't leave me feeling all that rested.  I think my diet is part of the issue: I just don't have as much control over what I eat when I'm away from home like this.  It's messed up my digestion, and that in turn has messed up my hemorrhoids, and that's not the most pleasant condition when you're sitting in a boat in salt water.

(Yes, you can count on My Training Blog by Elmore to make a beach vacation sound awful.  Don't worry--I'm managing to have some fun, too.)

Another challenge is my paddling priorities.  As usual, my coach has sent me a workout plan for the week.  Last Saturday's race notwithstanding, I like the direction I'm headed under Maks's guidance and I'm doing my best to get everything I can out of his workouts.  What's more, I'm paying for his advice, so it would be dumb of me to ignore it.  But I've also discovered some nice downwind conditions here on the coast this week.  The wind isn't fierce--it hasn't been more than 13 or 15 knots, maybe--but it's been blowing steadily for days and the conditions have had a chance to build.

Here's a map of Dauphin Island; the wind direction is noted in pink at the bottom:

Our condo is right on the beach on the Gulf side of the island.  On Tuesday morning I carried my boat out there, launched into the surf, and paddled out past the impact zone hoping to find placid-enough water to do my prescribed workout.  But the water wasn't placid.  What I found instead were good-sized downwind swells.  So I decided to play hooky from my coach's schedule and catch some runs.

An ideal downwind run is approximately parallel to the shoreline, and the thing to do is shuttle a vehicle a few miles downwind of where you plan to launch so you can ride the swells without any of that pesky upwind paddling.  But here at Dauphin Island the wind is blowing in from the south, so you have to paddle into the wind (away from shore) for a while before turning around and surfing back in.  So my Tuesday morning session amounted to some little downwind intervals.  I would paddle upwind far enough to have maybe five minutes of downwind to do before I had to paddle upwind again.

I'd forgotten what hard work downwind paddling is.  After a couple of minutes of sprinting hard after runs, I was gasping for breath.  So the "interval" model worked well for me.  Paddling back upwind was my recovery interval: the conditions were small enough that I was able to paddle pretty easy and still make progress up and over the oncoming swells.

I'm plenty fit from all the training I've done this spring, but I realize that I'm not "downwind fit" at this moment, so that's something I hope to work on between now and my arrival out in the Columbia River Gorge less than a month from now.

Yesterday I drove to a public access on the Mississippi Sound side of the island so I could find some quieter water for my coach's workout.  I put in at the east end of the island, near the mouth of Mobile Bay, and I could see more great downwind swells moving up into the mouth from the Gulf.  I put that out of my mind and paddled into the network of canals that serve the residential areas on Dauphin's north side (marked with a red asterisk on the map above).  I did three sets of (four times (2 minutes on/1 minute off) at 60 strokes per minute and four times (1 minute on/2 minutes off) at 80 spm).  Maks told me to bring the power to these pieces: "find the catch early on and do the required leg/hip work."  The workout hadn't seemed all that bad on paper, but it was tough.  By the time I was starting the third set my muscles were throbbing and all I wanted was for it to be over.

Once it was over, I paddled back to where my truck was parked and took a few minutes to rest and drink some water.  I was very tired, but those downwind swells sure looked inviting, so I decided to go back out for a quick run.  I paddled into the wind for about a kilometer, then chased the runs back up toward Mobile Bay.  I worked on the basics, trying to put my "nose in the hole" and keep the boat running downhill for as long as possible.  Once I was back at the parking area, I tore myself away and took out.  I was dead-dog tired and I spent the rest of the day mostly lying around.

This morning it seemed that the wind had abated.  I wondered if maybe the downwind opportunities were over for this trip.  But I'd already made up my mind to find quieter water for another of my coach's assignments, so it was nice not to have that distraction.  I had an errand to run on the mainland a few miles north of the island, so I decided to paddle on the Fowl River near its confluence with Mobile Bay.  I did a fairly easy contrast workout: six sets of (3 min. at 60 spm/2 min. at 48 spm/1 min. at 68 spm/1 min. rest).  It was a chance for me to focus on posture and stroke mechanics.  I thought the Fowl River was a pretty place in spite of the occasional gaudy McMansion that marred its banks.  It reminded me of other streams I've visited along the Gulf Coast, like Old Fort Bayou over at Ocean Springs, Mississippi.

By this afternoon the wind seemed to have picked back up a bit, and shifted a little to the southwest.  I decided to carry my boat down to the beach and see what kind of downwind action might be had.  It turned out the conditions were good, though I had a hard time catching and prolonging runs.  I paddled into the wind until I was about 2000 meters offshore, and did several laps back in and back out.  Downwind is hard to do well, but man, it's fun when you succeed.

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Monday photo feature

Behold, the top two female finishers in this past weekend's race on Taylorsville Reservoir in Kentucky!  Elaine Harold of Louisville and Hollie Hall of South Point, Ohio, must find shelf space for their fancy new hardware.  Photo by George Hall.

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A reality check

I arrived at Taylorsville Reservoir, some 45 minutes southeast of Louisville, Kentucky, in the late afternoon on Friday.  I went down to the race site for a pre-race session: two times (4 minutes on/1 minute off) at 60 strokes per minute, four times (1 min. on/1 min. off) at 80 spm, and two times (4 min. on/1 min. off) at 60 spm.  The buoys marking the course were already out: we would be doing three laps of a 5-kilometer loop.

After paddling I went up to the state park campground and set up my tent, and then ventured into the town of Taylorsville to see what kind of supper might be had.  The choices were few, but I was awfully hungry, and the local Mexican restaurant seemed like a good bet to take care of that.  Three beef enchiladas and a tamale later, the meal was sitting heavy in my stomach and I hoped I hadn't made a dietary mistake the night before a race.

The race would be starting at 8:30 AM Saturday morning, so I set my alarm for 5 AM.  My body thought it was 4 AM... darn Eastern Time.  Once I'd had some coffee and breakfast and visited the restroom, I was feeling reasonably race-ready.  I headed down to the race site to get ready.

There were four racers entered who had beaten me at least once in the past, but who I considered to be at my competitive level or "in my league" or however you like to say it.  To be perfectly honest, I was feeling confident that I might pull off a win.  I mean, with my fancy new Internet coach and all the sophisticated workouts he's been putting me through, I couldn't believe that anybody else was as fit as I was.

We put our boats in the water and warmed up, and when the clock chimed 8:30 we were off.  I sprinted pretty hard off the line, but not as fast as Terry Smith of Chattanooga, Tennessee, just to my right.  I quickly moved onto his port-side wake, but was unable to match his speed and dropped back to his stern wake.  Scott Cummins of Louisville was to our left and he took my place on Terry's side wake.

Meanwhile, 16-year-old West Virginian Corbin Peters was moving up on my left side.  Before the race Scott had remarked, "He'll be beating us all in a year or two."  But at that moment it seemed that the future was NOW.

I was feeling some oxygen deficiency in my thigh muscles--a sign that I wasn't quite as warmed up as I should have been.  More dire than that was that the torrid early pace had zapped the confidence I had enjoyed in the early stages of my race in Louisiana three weeks prior, and in that state I'm prone to making bad decisions.  Corbin and I both were struggling with the confused wakes behind Terry and Scott, and when Corbin dropped off the pace about a kilometer in, I decided to stick with him, thinking I could regroup and rejoin the lead pack later.  One thing I've learned in many years of racing is that's never a good idea: once "the train" has left you behind, it's very difficult to reel it back in and get back on it.  But at the moment my survival instincts were doing all my thinking for me.

Terry and Scott were starting to open a gap on us.  As Scott told me later, Terry was dictating the pace and he was just trying to hang on.  At about the same time another Chattanoogan, Roy Roberts, came chugging past Corbin and me with the intention of joining the leaders.  I wanted to go with him but just didn't have it in me to sprint again at that moment.  About a kilometer later Ryan Landis of Corwin, Ohio, whom I'd last seen back in 2018 on the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River, came gliding by.  This time I did give chase and I managed to drop Corbin, but I was unable to stay with Ryan.

And so the order was set with the lead pack moving farther and farther ahead with Ryan in fourth and me in fifth, and I realized the rest of my morning was going to be long and lonely.  This was not at all the kind of race I'd envisioned myself having.  Where was my power?  Where was my speed?  I told myself to concentrate on posture and good strokes and all that, and at least make a respectable showing, but all the air had gone out of my balloon.

I spent the rest of the race paddling as efficiently as I could and gazing forlornly up ahead.  By the third lap the lead pack was well over 90 seconds ahead of me.  Ryan was some 40 seconds closer to them than I was, but otherwise he was in the same no-man's-land predicament that I was in: fourth place was his destiny, assuming nobody in the lead pack crashed and burned.  Up in front Terry continued to lead while Scott, one of the most tenacious competitors I've ever met, hung on to his side wake (Scott told me later that "hanging on" is all he was doing).  Several times it appeared that the pair had opened a gap on Roy, but Roy, who may rival Scott in the tenacity department, always managed to regain contact.

In the end, it was Terry claiming the victory in one hour, 16 minutes, 23 seconds.  Scott took second place just three seconds back, with Roy finishing third in 1:16:49.  Ryan captured a fourth-place finish that he can be proud of under the circumstances.  I brought my own ordeal to a close at 1:19:37.

Elaine Harold of Louisville overtook Corbin en route to the women's title with a time of 1:23:34.  Hollie Hall of South Point, Ohio, was the second-fastest lady in 1:25:50.

The complete results are posted here.  (Note: Ryan Landis's time is incorrect.  He in fact finished in the neighborhood of one hour 17 minutes.  There was electronic timing in effect and my guess is that some kind of chip error is to blame.)

I carried my boat back to the car and licked my wounds.  I had not felt fresh as the race began and I wondered if I was not adequately rested even though last week was supposed to be an "easy" week of training.  One of the perils of using an Internet coach is that the coach can't really know how you're feeling at any given moment, or what your unique competitive priorities might be.  And I'm a meticulous sort who likes to follow coach's instructions to the letter, even when it might be in my better interest to back off.

Meanwhile, I would be remiss not to point out that I was beaten by fit, strong, smart, talented athletes.  The 56-year-old Terry, with his tall, powerful build, has always been a solid talent, and talking to him after the race I learned that he's embraced his training this spring like never before.  Let's face it: even a fantastic race on my part might not have been enough to beat him.  The other guys readily admitted that they haven't been doing what Terry has, but they nevertheless did a better job of going after him than I did.

We enjoyed a nice lunch provided by the race organizers, with the awards ceremony following.  Then we all parted company and I returned to my campsite for an afternoon nap.  I slept for maybe an hour or so, then got back up to prepare myself for my big date!  Okay, not that kind of date--I was going to Louisville to see Scott.  But hey, Scott knows how to show somebody a good time on a Saturday night.  What were we going to do?  Surf behind the Belle of Louisville.

The Belle is the oldest still-active steam-powered sternwheeler in the U.S., and its big paddle wheel generates some really nice surfing waves out on the Ohio River.  It was scheduled to take passengers out on an evening excursion starting at 8 PM, and Scott and I got ready to take advantage, shuttling a vehicle to Cox Park before putting in at the Louisville Rowing Club.  We were both stiff and sore from the morning's race, but we took a nice long warmup and by the time the Belle had set sail, we were ready to go.

The waves were big fun, but we had to work hard to stay on them.  Scott said the Belle wasn't traveling as fast as she usually did, and was apologetic about the waves not being as juicy as they can be.  No worries on my part--that just gives me something to look forward to the next time I get a chance to surf at Louisville.  Scott and I both felt better after the session than we'd felt before.  At that moment I definitely needed a reminder that there's still plenty of joy to be found in the sport no matter how poorly I might race.

I bade Scott farewell and made the 45-minute drive back to my campsite in the state park on Taylorsville Reservoir.  I crawled into my tent and got a pretty good night's sleep, although I wasn't entirely ready to get up when I did the next morning.  I arose at 6:45 AM, but my body thought it was 5:45.  Darn Eastern time.

I made some breakfast, broke camp, and headed down to the lake for a recovery paddle.  Maks had assigned five sets of (13 min. on/2 min. off) in the "A1" stroke rate zone (about 60-75 spm).  I kept the rate in the low 60s and tried to relax and concentrate on good strokes and enjoy the overcast, slightly-drizzly morning.  Taylorsville Reservoir was created by the construction of a dam on the Salt River.  Situated in hilly terrain, it's one of those lakes that are easy to get lost on, with many fingers branching off the main channel.  I used my 2-minute rest breaks to look back and study where I'd come from so I could recognize it on the way back.

After paddling I stopped back at the campground bath house to grab a quick shower, then hit the road.  I wasn't headed back to Memphis: every year at this time (excepting last year, of course), my mom and my sister's family and I get together at Dauphin Island on the Alabama Gulf Coast for a little beach vacation.  It took me some 11 hours to make the trip down Interstate 65 through cities like Bowling Green, Nashville, Birmingham, Montgomery, and Mobile.  The weather was rainy most of the way down, and it really started to pour when I reached Mobile.  I grabbed the essentials form my truck, found shelter in our rented condo, and soon was in bed for a much-needed sleep.  I slept well, but the way I'm feeling this morning I don't expect I'll be doing much more than lying around like a slug today.  Maks has sent me a workout plan for the week but I don't even want to think about that any sooner than tomorrow.

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Working and resting and preparing to race

I mentioned in my last post how worn out I was from the previous two weeks of training.  I finally had a day off on Monday, and I basically crashed.  I got a modest amount of work done around the house and in the workshop, but I spent much of the day just lying around like a slug.

The rest did me some good: by Tuesday morning I was feeling fresh again.  I went to the river and did eight sets of (1 minute at 60 strokes per minute/1 min. at 50 spm/1 min. at 70 spm/1 min. at 50 spm/1 min. at 60 spm).  I did this with some extra weight in the boat.  The main objective was to maintain good posture and stroke mechanics and keep my blade pressure consistent throughout all the various stroke rates.  It was a pretty easy workout; it took more mental concentration, thinking about the varying stroke rates, than physical exertion.

This entire week is intended to be an easy week, both because of the harder weeks I've just done and because of the race I've got coming up this Saturday.  In keeping with that, yesterday was a break from paddling: Maks told me to go out and do some "non-specific endurance" activity.  I got on my bike and rode the Greenline out to Shelby Farms and back.  I always enjoy riding the elevated section of trail through the Wolf River bottoms just east of Interstate 240.  I was expecting the Wolf to be swollen from the heavy rain we'd had overnight, but it wasn't really.

I was back in the boat this morning doing another session with extra weight in the boat.  For me, the "extra weight" is a few barbell plates stacked in the space just fore of my surfski's footboard.  Usually I make it 12.5 pounds, which is about 5.67 kilograms.  Putting extra weight in the boat increases blade pressure on your paddle without killing your glide like a resistor does.  As Maks puts it, its purpose is "to stimulate you into feeling the catch and pull phase of the stroke even better."

Today's workout was five sets of (8 minutes on/2 minutes off).  It was a somewhat tiring endurance session but it didn't beat my body up too badly two days before a race.

I leave in the morning for Taylorsville Reservoir in Kentucky.  I expect it to take me around six hours.

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